


a suggestion

by madnessiseverything



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Drabble, Post Episode 34, a start for them let's say it like that, i have no idea how to tag this, post suggestion essentially, the start of an important conversation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-07-14 10:36:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16038737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madnessiseverything/pseuds/madnessiseverything
Summary: “Why didn’t you just ask me?” She hates how shaky the question comes out, wants to grab the words and mold them into something; something braver, something less scared. Yet she can only think of the terrible sinking feeling she had found herself with not an hour before.or the one where Caleb fucked up and Nott asks why.





	a suggestion

**Author's Note:**

> so this is just a little bit of word vomit about nott post suggestion. it's not terribly complex and just the beginning of an important conversation these two need to have but hey, a start! :D hope you like it.

“Caleb?” He looks up at her, head nodding in acknowledgment. “Can I talk to you? Please?”

“Of course,” he says and gods, Nott doesn’t want to sit where he points beside himself. Instead, she stays standing, hands twisted together in front of her. Her throat feels dry but she has to ask, she has to. Her skin itches— no her _f_ _lesh beneath_ itches with the need to know, to ask.

“I had a question about— I wanted to ask about the, uh, the thing you did? In the boat, before we went swimming.” She watches as his face smooths out from whatever expression he had been sporting before—one of his curious ones, no doubt. She swallows past the lump in her throat as he puts away his book and leans forward.

“Yes?” His voice is quiet, rough like it always is when they talk seriously. There is something in his eyes, something she can’t discern. It scares her.

“Why didn’t you just ask me?” She hates how shaky the question comes out, wants to grab the words and mold them into something; something braver, something less scared. Yet she can only think of the terrible sinking feeling she had found herself with not an hour before.  
  
Caleb’s careful, neutral facade shatters and some part of Nott wants to celebrate the victory. Instead, she wrings her hands some more and watches as Caleb’s lips part slowly, letting out a slow breath.

“I, uh...” He leans forward, hands hovering in the air as if to make a grab for her own. He stops short. Nott doesn’t know if she is grateful or hurt; her thoughts fight over her desperate need for affection and her fear of what the answer could be.

Caleb wets his lips and more moments of silence pass. A new fear crawls into Nott’s thoughts, ugly and bone-chilling.

“You didn’t even consider asking, did you?” The question breaks free faster than Nott could finish forming it, the hitch in her voice leaving her so terribly vulnerable. Caleb flinches and pulls his hands away. His eyes are wide and Nott wishes she could rewind the entire day. Rewind to before Caleb almost drowned, before the water, before the boat. Caleb furrows his brows in that terrible, sad way and Nott wants to smooth out the lines it creates. Her claws dig into her own skin and she stays where she is.

“No,” Caleb finally says, voice almost too quiet to hear. “I did not.” Nott feels her world tilt at the confirmation, her stomach twisting. She wants to be angry, rage, _yell_ at him for simply pushing past any boundaries she had without her permission, without even considering asking— yet all she feels is a confusing mess of pain, sadness, and disappointment. Of course.

“I’m glad you did it,” she says into the cold space between them. And she is, really, truly. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have been there to save you.” She looks up at him with a brittle smile, wishing for nothing more than to feel less like the porcelain her mask is made out of.

Caleb’s face shows a pain she remembers too well from an expensive inn room back in Zadash. That night seems years ago, yet still too raw. He grimaces and Nott doesn’t know why she can’t be angry like Beau. It always seems so easy for the monk. “I just wish you’d asked first.” Her voice is small, smaller than she feels. She hates it.

Caleb pulls in like her words had been much sharper and a terrible satisfaction spreads in Nott. She hates it almost as much as the lack of anger.

“I’m—” Caleb clears his throat. Nott pulls at her cloak, still around her shoulders, still damp. She waits. “I’m sorry, Nott.” He drops his gaze to his own hands, fingers twisting in his lap. “I did not intend to upset you.”

She pushes against the frail ‘it’s okay’, swallows the words back down. No. “Thank you for the apology,” she says instead, voice shaky, cracking. She straightens her shoulders, drops her hands to her sides. “Please—” she swallows again, “please don’t do it again.”

She doesn’t know what to read on Caleb’s face, so she chooses to focus on the way his lips pull into a thin line before he nods. It’s a familiar motion. “I— I won’t.”

“Thank you.” She pulls her hood into place and nods. “Thank you. I’m going to— uh. Jester wanted to show me something. Good. Um…” She trails off, unsure of how to leave. Caleb looks at her with a sadness that almost makes her knees buckle. No, she tells herself more insistently. This is important. For them both. Yes.

“I’m gonna go see her now.”

“Okay,” Caleb says faintly and inhales. “Okay.”

Nott flees the room before her awful, terrible, gods-damned empathy pushes her to comfort. The door falls shut and Nott no longer is sure if this is progress or steps backwards. She desperately hopes it is the former.

**Author's Note:**

> come yell with me about these disasters over on my [cr tumblr](https://nottanothercritter.tumblr.com/). <3


End file.
